Objective

Worldwide, major earthquakes have caused tragic catastrophes with unparalleled losses in human life and property where inadequate design and construction practices have been identified as the major culprit. Thus, for mitigating the seismic risk, high quality training and education of professionals and researchers in analysis and design of structures has become of paramount importance. The proposed Network aims at promoting the research cooperation on the design of earthquake-resistant structures by creating strong synergies between research and practice among six countries under seismic threat: Greece and Cyprus (EU), Chile, India and Mexico (S&T) and Armenia (ENP). Bridging the gap between the Earthquake Engineering and Computational Mechanics scientific communities with the exploitation of the scientific potential and the complementary expertise of human resources of the Network, the research teams will further deepen, strengthen and advance their activities by addressing five major disciplines of Earthquake Engineering: (i) Stochastic characterization of seismic ground motions, for simple and accurate generation of synthetic accelerograms; (ii) Modeling and analysis of structures under seismic loading, aiming to validate and advance the cutting edge of computational methods; (iii-iv) Reliability- and performance-based seismic design, working towards a fully probabilistic framework for holistic structural design; and (v) Analysis and design of base-isolated structures, addressing the needs of high performance designs for critical facilities. For each topic, training programs will be provided through joint workshops, participation in thematic conferences and attendance of a specialized international MSc course hosted at the coordinating institution. Combining such focused training with diverse expertise and ensuring a strong connection between research and practice, the Network is set to have a lasting impact, pushing forward the boundaries of science in the field.

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Greece and Cyprus relay seismic expertise

Experts from earthquake-prone EU nations Greece and Cyprus have helped engineers, researchers and scientists from developing nations to build better structures. This can lessen the chances of casualties and destruction when an earthquake hits.

For millennia, earthquakes around the world have caused significant loss of life and property, with societies struggling to find better ways to build their structures, towns and cities.
While much progress has been made in this area, the threat remains very serious in developing countries, pointing to a need for high-quality training and education in building earthquake-resistant structures.
Today, earthquake engineering has become a complex, multidisciplinary scientific field that involves structural analysis, structural design, materials science, seismology and advanced mathematics. Against this backdrop, the EU-funded project ADERS (Analysis and design of earthquake resistant structures) developed a network to promote research cooperation in designing earthquake-resistant structures.
ADERS brought together two EU Member States with strong seismic expertise – Greece and Cyprus – with earthquake-vulnerable nations outside the EU, those being Chile, Egypt, India and Mexico. The EU project members consolidated knowledge in earthquake engineering, computational mechanics and cutting-edge research to distribute to non-EU partners.
They coordinated interdisciplinary research and training to produce new results in the different subdomains related to the topic. On the one hand, the project involved training highly qualified engineers and updating them with the latest advances in analysis and design of earthquake-resistant structures.
On the other hand, it exposed early-stage researchers (ESRs) to this valuable knowledge, as well. By organising exchange visits and outlining common research interests, the project has established and strengthened contacts with non-EU partners.
Four experienced researchers from the EU partners conducted joint workshops to identify common research interests. A number of two-way visits were also organised between the EU and non-EU partners leading to enhanced knowledge exchange.
In addition, ADERS partners presented their research results at the 4th International Conference on Computational Methods in Structural Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering (COMPDYN 2013) and the 3rd South-East European Conference on Computational Mechanics (SEECCM 2013).
Both these events were held on the Greek island of Kos in June 2013. By fostering interaction among high-quality research teams and introducing ESRs to the field, the project upgraded earthquake engineering knowledge in the scientific communities of the target countries.
These networking activities and joint initiatives, which have also continued beyond the project’s duration, will undoubtedly lead to better construction of structures on a global level.

Earthquake Engineering is a multi-disciplinary and constantly evolving science with great economic and social importance, encompassing structural analysis and design, computational methods and material science, both in a deterministic and stochastic context. Recent seismic events in developing countries, as well as in modern cities of developed countries, have shown the large life and economic losses that can occur after a strong earthquake as a consequence of bad structural design and construction of the infrastructure. High quality training and education of professionals and researchers in the field of analysis and design of earthquake resistant structures is of paramount importance in reducing the seismic risk in earthquake vulnerable regions. A glance at the global seismicity map reveals that the countries involved in this Network (Greece, Cyprus, Egypt, Mexico, Chile and India) have suffered many devastating earthquakes in their recent and more distant history.

The Network aimed at promoting the research cooperation for the design of earthquake resistant structures by creating strong sustained synergies between the earthquake engineering research and practice in Europe represented by two European Union Member States (EU-MS) (Greece and Cyprus), three countries with an S&T agreement (Chile, India, Mexico) and one country covered by the ENP (Egypt).

The project had a total duration of 4.5 years. The initial duration was 4 years, but 6 months were also added to it as an extension. The objective of the project was in one hand to train highly qualified engineers, by offering them the opportunity to become aware and to study intensively the recent advances in the field of analysis and design of earthquake resistant structures, and on the other hand to expose experienced as well as early stage researchers to the research activity performed by the EU partners in the field of the project. This objective has been satisfactorily achieved. Contacts within the non-EU partners were strengthened by organizing visits from the EU-partners to them for specifying common research interests and by organizing visits of them to the EU partners.